Spiral Flower Die Gift Box

 

You know when I post to this blog twice in one day, that I'm pretty excited!  Or that I should have posted yesterday... but we'll go with excited.

I'm teaching a Boxes of Awesome class this Thursday and was looking around for more ideas when I stumbled upon the sweetest little box on Pinterest. (Do you follow me there?  click here to follow Audra (the crafty yogi) on Pinterest!)  And this was not the topper on the box in the first photo I saw, but I liked the shape and investigated further.  Which led me to Nadine Koller's site called stemplemami (stampin' mommy?) and it was in a different language!! It's so cool how the web has made the world a smaller place.  Anyhow, the photo there had three flowers like mine.  So I figured out things pretty well, I'm sure I could of found more info elsewhere, but I was committed to trying it from her many photos.

Here are the dimensions and the basic how to info I came up with, and of course you can decorate the top any way you like.

8x8" card stock, I used Sahara sand (sometimes crumb cake needs a break). Using the envelope punch board, score and punch EACH side at 2 5/8" (don't worry about using the score lines here, that's next!)

THEN, use the existing score lines to score and punch each side. Fold on all the score lines and the little wings on the corners come in together.  I clipped off the points on each side (not in this photo). Squeeze the edges together and fold down the now pointless corners with sticky strip on them to hold the corners in.

The lid: this was a bit of a struggle for me, but I came up with: card stock 4 10/16" square, I used pink pirouette.  Score each side at 5/8", snip the corners, fold the score lines and use some Tombo to attach the flaps making the lid.

I made 3 of the spiral flowers, which I softened up with my bone folder and sponged the edges with the same color.  I held them together with some hot glue.

The doily is sponged on the edges with sahara sand and I cut it to the center and crinkled a bit so I could make it a smaller circle.  I attached the flowers with another bit of hot glue to a 1 3/4" inch punched out circle in the same color.

Add a bit of ribbon and linen thread, a pear pizzazz leaf from the little leaves sizzlits, attach the doily to the box lid with Tombo and hahzah!  You have a super pretty box.

I'm hoping you can make some sence out of this, I might need to figure out how to make videos pretty soon!  You can also search out Nadine's blog.

Here's the box one more time.

Springy Birthday Cards

It's still cold in Northern Virginia and "they're" calling for possible snow Wednesday, but this past Sunday was pretty warm AND my Mom texted me saying that she needed birthday cards for triplet girls turning seven, for a party that my niece was going to attend. 

So I looked around for girl cards on pinterest but didn't really see anything that struck my fancy, but then I saw one with bright colors and flowers and I was like "I can do that."  After a little play with all the awesome Stampin' Up! products I had on hand, this is what I came up with.  My Mom was pretty happy, haven't heard if the girls liked them yet.  But I have had a few likes on my Facebook page for them so I figure they turned out pretty good.  I also think they could go out to women of all ages, what do you think?

 

Melon Mambo, Elegant Eggplant, and Daffodil Delight. Featuring the Petite Petals punch.

Cards in a Box

There's a current trend in the stamping world that I am loving right now.  Cards in a box.  They look awesome and they are actually pretty easy to make.  There are lots of tutorials and videos out there to help you make one, so I'm not going to go into a bunch of detail, just share a bit of the fun I'm having.

So we'll start with a basic version.  This one features Stampin' Up!s back yard basics bundle, which is nice so you don't need to cut everything out.  To pep it up a bit, I clear embossed the early expresso and  used my aqua painters to add the color.  Then I used the framelits and my big shot to cut them out.  I did three tulips and two butterflies.  To decorate the outside of the box I used the wood background stamp (love it!).

You attach the "pop up" pieces on bits of card stock the same color as the box--a bit of Tombo glue holds everything perfectly.

Here are two more cards in a box.  Some birthday ones for my twin brothers, I call them Party in a Box.  There was a lot of free hand cutting, but I sometimes find that pretty therapeutic.

I took a video so you can see how fun they are to open.

And my favorite one was a Valentine for my husband.

I used bits of window sheet with mini glue dots to attach all the fun stuff. And there's a photo showing what the card looks like flat.

I wrote the mushy stuff on the panel with the hearts.

 I went a little over board on this one so I made my own envelope with the envelope punch board.
Let me know what you think and happy crafting!

Garland, Banners, and Decorations, Remarkables Blog Tour

Ahh...February is here and I've been busy cleaning and organizing the house.  Today's post deals with my friends and family bulletin board. I have in the kitchen near my fridge 2 bulletin boards where I hang the photos and announcements that people send to me.  I love it because I look at it every day!  But I've been noticing lately that it's pretty blah...and now that I'm a Stampin' Up! demo, I have no excuse!  I was super excited to find out that the Feburary blog hop was for garlands and banners.  I wanted to keep things fairly simple, so I used the banner kit that I earned from the Stampin' Up! Sale-A-Bration special.  I got the whole kit FREE (with a $50 purchase).

So let's get started.  Here is what the bulletin board has been looking like.  Not too pretty, I admit.  Most years about this time I update the pictures with the ones recieved in the Christmas cards. *** important note, I am now going to take the photos and announcements coming down and super quick scrapbook them!!  Stay tuned for that post.

Here is the kit souped up just a bit.  I used sponge daubers to polka dot all the canvas pennants.  I didn't like the flowers pre-printed on two of the card stock banners, so I flipped them over and used the Off the Grid stamp.  And the final change was the addition of two mini clothes pins -the kit comes with 7 (I had some left over from a Paper Pumpkin Kit) but we have some super cute gold and silver ones in the Celebrations catalog that would work great.  (here are just the 7 clips, but I had more pictures and more space on the banner so I added on, see next photo)

I added the bigger pictures all neat like across the center.  Now I am thinking that I'll mat them with some pretty card stock--which will make the before mentioned scrapping even faster next year.  And there is space at the bottom to hand important papers if needed.

Let me know what you think!  Enjoy the rest of your blog hop tour, I am sure there are some wonderful ideas to inspire you.

Click on the links below to see all sorts of wonderful ideas!

click here to see the ideas Maria has to share

Audra Monk http://thecraftyyogi.blogspot.com/2014/02/garland-banners-and-decorations.html YOUR'E HERE!
Maria Pane http://stampinandscrappinwithriri.blogspot.com/2014/02/remarkable-stampers-pinworthy-blog-tour.html
Andi Potler  http://www.absolutekreations.com/2014/02/13/remarkable-pinworthy-blog-tour-banners-garlands-pennants-galore

Michele Reynolds   http://inspirationink.typepad.com/inspiration-ink/2014/02/banners-garlands-and-pennants-pinworthy-blog-tour.html
Pam Staples  http://wp.me/p3p2VA-Hj 

Jeannette Swain  http://www.StampsNWhatnot.com/my_weblog/2014/02/banner-love.html
Janet Wakeland  http://wp.me/pHIQD-69C

Nancy Amato http://stampinallnight.blogspot.com/2014/02/remarkable-stampers-pinworthy-blog-tour.html
Missy Bolinger http://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/missybolinger/blog
Tamra Davis    http://www.theCardLadies.com/loving-the-stampin-up-banners/
Connie Diebler http://www.conniestamps.com/2014/02/february-pinworthy-blog-tour.html

  

Sherrie Eddleblute http://sweetestdesigns.blogspot.com/2014/02/banners.htmlCrystal Kondo http://wp.me/p2l6Qe-g1

Anne Matasci http://wp.me/pCcBw-1xl

Valentine Sweet Treat Holders

I've been busy!  Besides making crafty things, I teach yoga and I adore my students.  So I try to give them special little gifts throughout the year.  With Valentine's day quickly approaching, I have been busy making these cute little sweet treat holders.  I really like the new tag topper punch, so I figured out a way to use it to hold two little Dove dark chocolate hearts.

Pretty cute, yes?  I've made 40+ of these, so they needed to be pretty simple and realtively easy to assemble while away from the craft table.
Start with some card stock cut to just under 2"X6 1/2".  I used crumb cake.
Score at 3 & 3 1/2".
Cut some contrasting strips 5 1/2"X1".  I used blushing bride.
Score at 2, 2 1/2, 4 1/2, and 5.

Fold the score lines on the long strip and carefully slide both ends into the tag topper punch and punch.

Fold the score lines on your small strip and seal up with one mini glue dot.

2 mini glue dots attach each side to the outer piece, do these one side at a time for the best results.





The embellishment is the Happy Heart Day stamp from the Tags For You set.  I stamped it in real red and punched it out with the coordinating punch.  Two small hearts in blushing bride CS attached with small bits of dimensionals (save those edges) complete it.  Attach the whole thing with two dimensionals.

Finish off with some coordinating ribbon (5-6 inches, tucked in through the back and looped through). Tuck in two little chocolates and be ready to WOW!

Stay sweet!